They were designed to be the best…
they met enemies face to face,
endured tragedies and enjoyed victories…
they went down in history due to the bravery of their crews…
they are the ships that deserve to be called
“Naval Legends!”
In this episode:
Mikhail Kutuzov.
A fearless Cold War veteran.
After the Soviet Union, together with its allies, defeated Germany and Japan,
it focused all its efforts on reconstructing the country.
The respite was short however, due to the looming Cold War.
Given the economic situation of the postwar period,
the first ten-year shipbuilding program in the Soviet Union focused on light cruisers.
This new generation of warships was expected to combine the fighting experience gained
during the recent war and the Soviet’s postwar achievements in science and technology.
The Soviet Union started developing new cruisers in 1937, long before World War II.
The design was called Project 68.
With the outbreak of World War II it was put aside, which meant the project’s flaws did not become apparent
until the end of the war.
It was later succeeded by Project 68K,
and then in 1947 tactical and technical requirements were formulated for the next Project, 68-bis.
Project 68-bis cruisers were designed to cover attacks from fellow destroyers and torpedo boats,
protect battleships and heavy cruisers against enemy destroyers,
fire at shore targets,
and conduct independent operations in enemy territory, if necessary.
This was the most common class of cruisers in the history of Soviet shipbuilding:
fourteen Project 68-bis warships were commissioned in total.
One of the cruisers was named after the legendary military leader,
Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov,
commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon.
Cruiser Mikhail Kutuzov was laid down in February 1951 at the Nikolaevsky shipyard and launched in December 1953.
Flying the red, hammer and sickle flag of the Soviet Union,
she first underwent dock trials and then sea trials.
After the ship had accomplished all special assignments, she was commissioned and joined the Black Sea Fleet…
August 9, 1954 is considered to be the ship’s birthday.
Length: 209.96 m
Beam: 21.97 m
Total displacement: 18,360 t
Draft: 7.9 m
Armor:
Belt: 50-120 mm
Conning tower: 130 mm
Deck: 50 mm
Primary armament:
4 turrets with 3xMK-5-bis guns, caliber: 152.4 mm
Dual-purpose artillery: 6 turrets with 2xSM-5-1s guns, caliber: 100 mm
16x37 mm twin antiaircraft V-11 machine guns
Rate of fire: 160-180 rounds per minute
8x30mm twin antiaircraft AK-230 machine guns
Rate of fire: 1,000 rounds per minute
Crew: 1,270
Steam turbine plant (two turbogear units)
Power: 125,000 bhp
Maximal speed: 32 knots
Range: 5,220 nautical miles at 18 knots
Primary armament turrets were mounted fore and aft.
Each turret was operated by a crew of between 48 and 62 people.
The turrets could provide accurate fire at a range of up to 32 km with armor-piercing shells,
semi-armor piercing shells, high-explosive shells, and time-fuse grenades…
A time-fuse grenade was a special shell used against air targets.
It was fired by the primary armament guns. Time-fuse grenades destroyed objects with their sheer weight,
as well as splinters that dispersed after the explosion.
The burst area formed an ellipsoid of 400 m by 200 m This is how time-fuse grenades worked.
Dual-purpose artillery turrets were mounted along the sides of the ship:
three turrets starboard and three turrets port. 100 mm guns were able to fire on surface and shore targets,
but were primarily designed to engage air targets.
Each turret was equipped with a range finding radar, helping to determine target range more accurately.
Each turret had an average rate of fire of 18-20 rounds per minute.
The chargemen had to be in good physical shape to keep up with this rate of fire.
With this in mind, every morning started with a special drill.
Instead of doing morning exercises, the chargemen would go to the ammunition chamber and throw shells to one another.
This was a challenging workout as each shell weighed 32 kg.
Underneath each turret was a barbette - a room with racks along the walls where shells
for the first shots were stored vertically.
Sea fights were very swift, so when a call to general quarters or general quarters drill was announced,
no time could be wasted waiting for the ammunition to be transferred from storage areas.
For this reason, shells for the first shots were kept right under the turret.
45 to 60 seconds after the general quarters drill was announced, the crew got to their assigned stations
...four crew members stayed under the turret.
They were ready to feed ammunition from the racks directly into the turret chamber on command.
After modernization, the cruiser had 24 antiaircraft cannons of two calibers: 30 and 37 mm
to fight off enemy aviation.
The accuracy of fire was assured by both optical guidance instruments and special artillery radars.
Project 68-bis cruisers became the last pure artillery ships of the Soviet Navy.
Their design incorporated all the major technical achievements of the war and postwar periods.
They were all outfitted with the latest radio-technical, navigational, and communication equipment.
In addition, the cruisers could sail autonomously for 30 days with enough reserves of provisions,
fuel, oil, as well as fresh and technical water, to cover a distance of up to 9,000 miles.
The main power plant of Kutuzov included six principal steam boilers and two main turbogear units.
The distance between the highest and the lowest points of the cruiser - the top mast and the keel - is 59 m.
… so that you have an idea of cruiser’s height - there are five more levels below us right now.
We are standing on the first continuous deck. It goes from bow to stern.
One level down we have the second continuous deck, which is armored.
The armor is 50 mm thick.
Then, if you go further down, you will find three more platforms and finally below them you will see tanks,
holds, and the ship’s bottom. By the way, the cruiser has a double, anti-mine bottom.
Engineers developed a special construction technology for Project 68-bis ships,
allowing for an all-welded hull.
For the first time in the Soviet shipbuilding armor plates were used both as protection and as bearing structure.
This design increased the ship’s durability and saved weight,
allowing for installation of additional armaments and storage of extra ammunition.
The cruiser is divided into 2,500 rooms. Apart from working spaces,
Mikhail Kutuzov also had three medical cabins (for a therapist, a surgeon, and a dentist),
four libraries, a cinema that showed movies on the holidays, an officers’ mess hall,
and 42 single and double officers’ cabins.
1,000 enlisted sailors were accommodated in 38 crew quarters of different capacities, ranging from 20 to 70 people.
This particular crew quarters might be considered “high-class”.
Why?
First of all, it is designed for only 27 sailors and has portholes.
Bigger crew quarters with capacities of 40, 50, 60, and 70 people are located in the head,
the midship, and the stern.
They are one or even two decks below us and, of course, they don’t have any portholes.
Soviet ships built between the end of World War II and the beginning of 1960s did not have any space
for a crew mess hall.
Officers had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the officers’ mess hall,
while sailors had their meals in their quarters.
The only man on board who was allowed to eat separately from other crew members was the ship’s captain.
It was his privilege. He had his meals in a special saloon with a dedicated pantry.
An assigned seaman steward laid the table there and cooked food according to captain’s orders.
The rest of the crew, beginning with the executive officer and ending with rookie sailors, had the same menu.
The only difference was that officers ate in the mess hall, midshipmen ate in the small mess hall,
and the rest of the crew had their meals in their living quarters.
The first sea cruise of Mikhail Kutuzov was the most difficult.
In June 1957 the cruiser left Sevastopol and set sail to Leningrad to help celebrate
the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution.
She went through the Black and the Mediterranean Seas
into the Atlantic Ocean, and then to the North and the Baltic Seas.
The crew had additional orders: go to the northwest Atlantic, find a storm as powerful
as possible and pass through it to test the ship’s endurance and performance.
The ship was brand new…
…they found a mighty storm.
The cruiser entered it intentionally,
and during this storm she had a maximal list angle to port…
The ship returned to even keel, but the starboard bilge, a solid cast part weighing 20 tons,
was torn out like a tooth and, along with the anchor, thrown on the deck…
Despite the fact that Mikhail Kutuzov never fired her guns in a real battle,
her service record is far from being dull.
The ship went on 15 long range sea cruises
and participated in rescuing sailors from the exploded battleship Novorossiysk.
Mikhail Kutuzov performed operational duties in the Mediterranean Sea and in the Atlantic.
During the Arab-Israeli War in 1967 and in 1973,
the cruiser served as the command post of the USSR’s chief military advisor in Egypt.
…the mere presence of the Soviet cruiser in Alexandria
guaranteed that the port and the city were safe from air raids and any other attacks from Israeli armed forces.
The ship was the filming location for the movie Uvolnenie na Bereg (Shore Leave).
Actors Lev Prygunov and Vladimir Vysotsky, who starred in the movie,
lived aboard Mikhail Kutuzov among the rest of sailors for several days.
The cruiser hosted many political leaders and paid official visits to Albania,
the Republic of Croatia (part of Yugoslavia at the time), Romania, and Algeria.
Project 68-bis cruisers were the foundation - the backbone of the Soviet Navy
from the moment of construction until the beginning of the 1970s.
Mikhail Kutuzov proudly showed the colors of the Soviet Navy in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1988 the cruiser was transferred to the reserve of the USSR Navy and 10 years later she was decommissioned.
In July 2002 Mikhail Kutuzov sailed her last cruise from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.
The cruiser dropped anchor at the city seafront and began her service as a museum ship,
showcasing Russian naval glory.